Translation Strategies of Tourism Texts under the Guidance of Skopos Theory

Lei Liu1 a and Nan Lu2 b *

1,2Department of Foreign Language of Qiqihar Medical University, Qiqihar Heilongjiang, China

a84056867@qq.com; b729663040@qq.com

Keyword: Skopos theory; Tourism texts; Translation strategies

Abstract. Tourism is the pillar industry of many countries and regions, and culture is the core connotation of tourism. However, the English translation of foreign publicity materials of tourist cities is an important window for foreign tourists to promote China's tourism resources and show China's image to the world. Therefore, how to translate the propaganda materials of tourism culture has become an important topic for translators. Based on skopos theory, this paper analyzes the principles of translating tourist city's foreign publicity materials into English, and explores the strategies of translating tourist city's foreign publicity materials into English.

Introduction With the continuous improvement of China's international influence and the gradual development of the world tourism market, more and more foreign tourists are attracted by China's long history and culture. As a kind of tourism text, tourism publicity material is an important medium and means of tourism marketing and the most important way to attract tourists. Tourism cultural publicity materials are an important channel to display China's natural scenery and introduce traditional culture. In terms of translation of tourism cultural publicity materials, we have done a lot of work to promote the development of China's tourism industry. However, the quality of translation in this field needs to be improved. I. Skopos Theory of Translation Skopos theory came into being in the second half of the 20th century. Before the 1970s, most translation theories were dominated by linguistic translation theories, but due to the limitations of linguistic translation theories, they could not solve the new problems in translation [1]. People began to study translation from the perspective of function and communication, which developed rapidly and formed a new translation theory [2]. Skopos theory is developed under this background. It takes the purpose of text as the first criterion of translation, breaking the translation standard that has always been the focus of original text. 1. The Basic Connotation of Skopos Theory in Translation

According to skopostheorie, three general principles should be followed in translation, namely, skoposrule, coherence rule and fidelity rule. Skopos is Greek for "purpose." The principle of purpose takes precedence over other principles and is considered first in translation. Skopos theory generalizes the purpose of translation into three categories: the subjective purpose of the translator, the communicative purpose of the translation and the purpose to be achieved through translation. Generally speaking, we should pay more attention to the communicative purpose of translation[3]. According to the law of purpose, the process of translation is determined not by the original text, nor by the effect on the reader, nor by the author himself, but by the expected function or purpose of the target text. The three aspects of source culture, destination culture and destination expectation cannot be considered

2019 9th International Conference on Social Science and Education Research (SSER 2019)

Copyright © (2019) Francis Academic Press, UK DOI: 10.25236/sser.2019.132711

separately, and high-quality translation cannot be achieved without any of them. In inter-cultural translation, the purpose determines the means.

2. The Theoretical Advantages of Skopos Theory

Skopos theory has changed the circle of shift of emphasis in translation, and transformed the whole translation process from static to interactive, flexible and changeable[4]. Use translation skopos theory to guide the tourist city of external publicity materials translation can make foreign readers a better understanding of the meaning of tourism text, make them on the basis of full understanding and good resonance in the translation, and also makes the translation can be better accepted by readers, the acceptance of ascension for tourist city of external publicity materials translation laid a solid foundation. Skopos theory emphasizes the ability to communicate across cultures rather than proficiency in the use of language. It allows the translator to translate the same text in different ways according to the purpose of the translation.

II. Main Principles of Translation of Promotional Materials for Tourist Cities

Translation of Chinese tourism promotional materials into English is not a simple translation of words[5]. According to the previous skopos theory, it can be seen that "absolutely faithful" translation only against Chinese texts cannot translate good translations accepted by readers, but should follow certain principles of English translation. Clarifying the principles of English translation can pave the way for exploring the strategies of English translation and produce a translation that meets readers' expectations. Based on the current research results, this paper believes that the following principles should be followed when translating the propaganda text of tourist cities in Chinese:

1. The faithful to the original information

In the translation of tourism promotional materials, it is necessary to show a certain degree of "loyalty" to the original text. But this "loyalty" does not mean a word-for-word translation of the material. External publicity materials and tourist city in China English tourist city publicity materials, the biggest difference is that in terms of our country tourism city publicity materials use of rich emotional color adjectives and four more words to increase the propaganda of tourist city, the English tourist city is focused on publicity materials choose simple rather than long words, words short and concise, intuitive popular expression. In translation, should follow the English tourist city words characteristics of external publicity materials, with the objective reality of language translation, make the scenery more intuitive characterization, writing to avoid redundant words, the pursuit of the beauty of the natural rationality on language, faithful convey material information, pay attention to the translation of practical, rather than follow the Chinese language, to make the translation more close to the reader's reading habits.

2. Take cultural differences into consideration and promote Chinese culture

Foreign publicity materials of tourist cities in China usually introduce the history, customs and religious features of a tourist city, which contains rich cultural information[6]. For Chinese readers, because they have been exposed to the cultural context of Chinese for a long time, they are almost familiar with these cultures, so it is almost unnecessary to write in the original text. However, there are many cultural differences between the two nations, which are unheard of by western readers or tourists. If the translation is not handled properly, it is bound to cause difficulties for readers to understand and

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fail to achieve the purpose of publicity. In the process of translation, it is also necessary to spread Chinese culture. Since China's reform

and opening up, China's understanding of the international and the international community in the deepening understanding of me, especially in recent years to develop the tourism industry in our country, has also attracted a large number of international tourists to tour in China in the hope to understand China's customs and history and culture, tourist publicity materials as a kind of Message text, in fact can have the effect of present Chinese culture. This requires the translation of tourism promotional materials, on the basis of retaining the meaning of the original text, appropriately add cultural background and knowledge, in order to promote our culture, let the world understand China. This is also one of the starting points for international tourists to visit China.

III．Analysis of strategies for translating tourism promotional materials into English 1. Analysis of the differences in promotional materials between Chinese and British tourist cities

First of all, there are certain differences in language, culture and psychology between Chinese and English tourism promotion materials.

First, there are certain differences in language, culture and psychology between Chinese and English tourism publicity materials. Second, in terms of language, Chinese belongs to Sino-Tibetan language family and ideogram, which USES implicit grammar and pays more attention to parataxis. English, on the other hand, belongs to Indo-European and pinyin languages, which use explicit grammar and pay more attention to hypoglyphs. In terms of culture, due to the differences between Chinese and English languages, the two languages have different symbolic and derogatory meanings for the same thing. For example, "dragon" represents power and auspiciousness in Chinese. In English, dragon means fierce and devil. "Dog" in Chinese has a certain derogatory meaning, while dog in English has a certain positive meaning. In terms of psychology, also because Chinese is ideotyped, Chinese people pay more attention to intuition and image thinking, while English-speaking countries pay more attention to logical analysis. At the same time, due to the greater emphasis on modesty in Chinese culture, there are more salutations and modest words in Chinese vocabulary, such as "your father", "your country" and "my humble opinion". Secondly, there are some differences in the ways of expression between Chinese and English tourism promotional materials. Chinese tourism promotion materials pay more attention to the quotation of classic poetry, while English translation pays more attention to the presentation of the theme.

2. Language differences in promotional materials between Chinese and British tourist cities

In terms of vocabulary, China has a long history of 5,000 years, and its language and culture are extensive and profound. Many Chinese tourist cities use vivid adjectives and four-character idioms to enhance the appeal of the language. English tourism city publicity materials focus on the selection of easy to understand rather than lengthy vocabulary[7]. The wording is concise and clear, the expression is intuitive and popular, and attention is paid to the accuracy of information and the practicability of language. For English readers, simple words are easier to understand and can also achieve the purpose of publicity.

In terms of structure, the language expression habits of each social group will gradually form its unique language characteristics after time's precipitation. In Chinese, several commas can be used to combine the concatenated paracentric structures to express a complete meaning, thus forming a sentence. In most cases, there is no definite subject and predicate, and it is generally long, trying to

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introduce relevant information in detail in a long sentence and emphasize a kind of artistic conception. This syntactic structure of the language beautiful, strong sense of rhythm, very in line with the Chinese aesthetic standards. English is a kind of subordinate structure language. The sentence structure takes the subject and predicate as the core, and produces various subordinate structures in different places of a subject-predicate structure. The structure is complex, and it pays attention to the use of subordinate clauses and a series of connectives. This subordination is characteristic of many western languages, including English. This is the biggest difference with the Chinese language.

In terms of tense, obvious sentence tense changes can be found in English tourism city's external publicity materials. Chinese and English belong to different language families[8]. Chinese is not inflected much in language form, especially in verb form. Sometimes, words are used to express the "present", "past" and "future" of time. The time and object of action in English are mainly expressed through the inflection of verbs, which is the tense and voice of English. The general description in English tourism city publicity materials adopts the present simple tense, USES the past tense when referring to the subject of history, allusions, legends and so on, and USES the future tense when expressing the prospect or promise.

Conclusion

The rapid development of tourism in China has put forward high requirements on the quality of foreign publicity materials for tourist cities. As a tourism text, the translation of foreign publicity materials for tourist cities is the most important way to attract foreign tourists and an important carrier to inspire them to travel to China. The English translation of high-quality tourist city publicity materials can not only promote economic growth, but also effectively improve the city's international image. This paper, guided by skopos theory and combined with the principles of translation of foreign publicity materials of tourist cities, makes a meaningful study on the translation strategies of foreign publicity materials of tourist cities in China.

Acknowledgements Qiqihar Philosophy and Social Science Research Planning Project. Project Number: QSX2019-24JL. Project name: The Research of Qiqihar tourism Publicity Promotion. The corresponding Author: Nan Lu, Master Degree. Work in Department of Foreign Language of Qiqihar Medical University Reference [1]Wenbo Jia. Original intention and translation strategy[J]. Chinese Translation, 2012(4). [2]Gloria Cappelli. Sun, Sea, Sex and the Unspoilt Countryside: How the English Language Makes Tourists out of Readers[M]. Italy: Paris Publishing, 2007. [3]Yan Jiao. Study on strategies of translating Chinese tourism promotional materials into English[D]. JiLin university, 2007. [4] Liwen Chen. From the perspective of skopos theory, the English translation of tourist attraction introduction text is analyzed[D]. GuangXi University, 2008. Journal of Guangzhou City Polytechnic, 2017,9 (11) : 28-31. [5]Fangfang Bian. Translation of tourism materials from a cross-cultural perspective[D]. HeBei university, 2009

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[6]Qiufang Zhao. Comparative analysis of Chinese-English translation of tourism texts -- a case study of Xinjie town[J]. Modern communication, 2018,24:67-68 [7]Huajie Chen, Yue Xiao. Study on tourism text translation strategies in Tibet from the perspective of skopos theory[J]. Journal of XiZang University (Social Science Edition), 2018,4:195-199 [8] Wei Wei. Research on tourism text translation strategies in the context of cultural context [J]. Comparative research on cultural innovation, 2019, 01:98-99

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